


Oh General, My General

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Horror, Insanity, Mind Control, Order 66, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 20:36:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11387922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: The poem "Oh Captain, My Captain" was one of my favorites growing up. It wasn't a difficult jump for me to honor it by writing about a certain general lying cold and still on the deck.





	Oh General, My General

**Author's Note:**

> You may want to have fluff waiting for you when you reach the end of this sad tale. All I ask from you is that you put taking care of yourselves first, m'dears.

 

He lies there, cold and stiff on the deck. Body broken from too far a fall, lungs full of brackish water from his final gasp, a hole punched through his chest where his heart should be.

He's not breathing. I'm not sure I am.

They've been too afraid to touch him, once he'd been brought here. Too afraid to tuck the stubborn lock of hair that's fallen in his eye back up over his forehead. Too afraid to shut lids over blue-gray orbs, to hide them forever.

Too afraid to close his open jaw, lips blue from the cold water.

My heart leaps to resent them for it, but I find I cannot either.

We stand around, staring down at him, wondering where the missing pieces in our brains went. I don't understand. Why can't I remember...  _ anything...  _ about him? I know his strategies, I know his habits, I know he's a traitor, I know it's  _ good  _ we did this, but I can't remember the man.

My mind is screaming that he's evil, a clone-killer, a  _ traitor,  _ he betrayed us—

But I can't remember any cruelty.

I know brothers are missing, but I can't remember if  _ he  _ did that, or the droids.

_ Who is this man? Why would he betray us? _

_Why does it feel like I've lost something?_

I look up to find Boil's face twisted with rage. I can see the same questions in his eyes, but he's breaking under them.

He sends a vicious kick into shattered ribs and spits on the face of the corpse. “Not so powerful  _ now,  _ are you?  _ Jedi. _ ” And then he walks out.

I stare at the saliva sliding down the pale cheek, try to discover if I feel  _ sad  _ or  _ angry  _ or  _ justified  _ about it. Do I care at  _ all  _ about what Boil's done?

In the distance I hear a single blaster shot.

For a reason I can't define, my heart goes cold with dread, with fear—

As I race to the scene, leaving the body behind me, I hear another shot.

Another.  
I find a brother sprawled on the floor, a blaster in his hand, a hole through his head.

It's Boil.

His unseeing eyes have yet to lose the haunted anguish that the stillness of death will eventually wipe away.

But he was  _ glad  _ the Jedi was dead, he practically danced when the man fell.  _ He was the most loyal of us all, he hated traitors— _

Why would he do this? He should be celebrating...

Footsteps enter the room behind me and I turn to see Trapper. He stares at Boil for a long moment, his face unreadable.

Then he looks at me with such hopeless grief that it shocks me and murmurs, “There's something wrong.”

I want to agree, to ask if  _ he  _ can remember anything, if he knows how there could be such a  _ blank  _ in minds artificially  _ designed  _ to remember everything—

“Why does it feel like we've  _ done  _ this before?” Trapper asked. “I feel like I saw the traitor fall many times.”  
I have no answer for him.

“I— I think I've  _ seen  _ this before. I always end up in my bunk.”

Something—  _ something— _

Trapper lifts his blaster.

In horror I place my hand over his, holding it down.

“We're dreaming, Cody. I remember  _ nothing,  _ but I remember the feel of the muzzle in my mouth  _ and  _ against my temple, I— it's the way out. It's how we wake up.”  
I look back to Boil, but he doesn't look  _ awake  _ to me.

“Don't you get it?” Trapper asks. “You're not real. He's not real.  _ None  _ of this is real. I want to go home.”

Could that be the answer? A  _ dream _ ? Would that explain why we can't  _ remember— _   
And then he's moving again, and I'm just a heartbeat too slow. He falls, there's blood on my chestplate from where he's toppled forwards.

I can't seem to catch him and he hits the floor, cheek resting on my boot.

I hear another shot in the distance.

I don't know where to go, what to do. I've already called in the successful termination of the traitor, and been told to await further orders. The droids aren't attacking any longer, there are no hostiles to fight,  _ nothing  _ but a giant ship full of men who are...

_ Are we losing our minds?  _

_Did the Jedi curse us?_

_ He cursed us for killing him, and the curse took our memory of him, so we wouldn't know why we suffer as we lose our sanity and one by one die? _

I can feel the trembling in my limbs.

Aren't Jedi sorcerers? What other answer  _ is  _ there?

This feels too real to be a dream, Trapper's  _ body  _ feels too real for this to be a dream—

I escape the room, trying to return to the bridge. Surely if I can get there, what should happen  _ next  _ will become clear. 

Down an empty hall, I see a brother smashing his head against the wall, again, again—

The silence over the ship hangs so heavy, I half-expect a specter to emerge from one of the darkened hallways and do something terrible to me. The fear is nameless, I don't know if it's death I fear or pain or perhaps even  _ remembering,  _ or madness, but never in my life have I ever been this terrified.

I can't remember the man who was supposedly there for the war, but I  _ know,  _ I  _ feel  _ this fear is something beyond my experience.

Down another hall I hear screaming. Brokenhearted, terrible. I don't know why I don't go to investigate.

There's a shiny on the floor in front of me, sobbing, raising grief-stricken eyes to my face.

“Why are you weeping?” I hear myself ask.

He drags fingernails down his face, leaving angry scoring behind. “I don't know.”

Something is looming near, something I can't see, can't anticipate, can't do  _ anything  _ about—

I hurry away, hoping to outrun the thing, but knowing it's not  _ physical,  _ it's not something I can  _ fight  _ and escape—

Near the bridge I find Wooley, crouched by the wall, a dark brown cloak gripped tight in his hands. He has his face buried in it, he's rocking, he's murmuring into it, words that make no sense, words that sound half like prayer, half like delusion, wholly mad.

He hears my footsteps still, he looks up, expression desperately happy. “He's not dead.”  
“Who?”  
The face blanks, and after a long moment of nothing, the smile returns, and he says again, “He's not dead.”  
I can't help but wonder who's better off.

Wooley or Boil.

I back away from him into the bridge, find the body lying still and alone.

This time, there's a knife stabbed into its chest, holding a flimsi with a note scrawled in what looks like blood.

_ “Stop. Please, stop. We're sorry, just stop—” _

The last letter trails off, as if the hand had fallen away.

So I'm not the only one who wonders if this dead man is the one destroying us.

He deserved his death, he  _ did,  _ it's the one thing I am  _ sure  _ of, that I  _ know,  _ the  _ only tether  _ to what's around me. I cling to that knowledge, I have to base everything else around it. If I go methodically perhaps I will still make it out, make it home—

But  _ this  _ is home, isn't it? This ship, these men? I have no other home, but it feels like I  _ do— _

Cold against my hand shocks me, I realize I'm kneeling by the corpse. When did I—?

_ To read the note. To read the note, Cody,  _ I swear, trying to still my ragged breathing.  _ You're not losing it. Not yet. You  _ won't.  _ You'll— _

There's another harsh crack through the echoing halls as another brother gives up on the hellish puzzle.

I saw a holovid, once, about a small whaling ship out hunting Purgil. Their ship was caught by something that made no sense, a storm that couldn't exist. Some of them died. Others survived, and as they escaped the reach of the storm they found a massive cruiser.

The man saw a figure on the bridge before flying their ship into the hangar, thought with relief they were saved.

Until they could find no one aboard.

One by one they fell, lost to death, to madness, until the whaler stood on the bridge, looked out, and saw their little ship flying in.

That was when the man realized  _ he  _ was the one killing them all, the one slinking down hallways and no longer present every time they walked in on another corpse.

Where I am now feels far too much like that.

Only instead of me being the one killing many versions of myself... this ship is haunted in a different way.

_ This  _ man...  _ this  _ traitor...

What does he want? We can't go back and  _ not  _ kill him, so why is he seeking revenge—

And why does my entire inner being claim that for this traitor to avenge himself doesn't make sense?

_ He's evil, he's a clone-killer, of course he wants to make us suffer and die for uncovering his treason and executing him— _

I have his hand in mine.  _ Why  _ do I have his hand in mine?

It's cold. No longer damp from Utapau's water.

I press the fingers around my shoulder, though I have no idea why—

And then it hits me.

_ This  _ is home.

This grotesque tableau of warm commendation, of friendship,  _ this man's  _ hand on my shoulder, a quiet squeeze, a gentle pat, simply resting there after my world has fallen apart—

This is  _ home. _

I recoil in horror, the hand striking the floor with a dull slap.

No,  _ no,  _ please,  _ no— _

I was friends with a  _ traitor?  _ Does that make me one by association?

Another brother stumbles in, heading for the corpse I'm scrabbling away from. I'm too shaken to see who it is, and I don't even think he's seen me. He falls to his knees, near throwing himself on the floor, and then presses his mouth to the traitor's.

_ It's far too late to revive him,  _ I think, and then I realize that is not my brother's intent.

It's a kiss.

The trooper pulls away, a sob low in his throat, tears falling on the still face as he brushes the hair back so it no longer scrapes across the eyeball, then closes the lids.

“Forgive us,” he chokes. “Forgive us,  _ I  _ fired that shot—”

The corpse does not answer.

A rough-calloused hand strokes the auburn hair, fevered eyes searching the still face.

“Let my brothers go,” he pleads. “Take me, but spare them, please—”

There is another shot, and a scream.

The man here trembles, whimpering in pain. “ _ Please  _ spare them, punish  _ me instead— _ ” He bends low again, desperately kissing the slack mouth.

I watch, horrified, half expecting to see death whisper up from the traitor's mouth and through my brother's body until he too lies an empty shell.

But nothing happens.

Nothing.

And that's when I realize that in spite of a ship filled with men, I'm alone.

Well and truly alone, and just like the man in the holofilm, I will never escape.

Never.

 

 


End file.
